Backpacks help foster children make transition

When the backpack beeper goes off at UMass Memorial Medical Center, medical students know it means a child who has been taken from home is headed to foster care.

The state Department of Children and Families is charged with protecting children from child abuse and neglect. Once it removes a child from a home, it brings the child to UMass Memorial for a checkup if there is any question of physical or sexual abuse.

When children are taken into custody, there is a good chance they have no possessions except the clothes they are wearing, for there is usually no time to pack when being removed from a house.

To make the transition from the hospital to the foster home a tad less traumatic for those children, fourth-year University of Massachusetts Medical School student Heather Busick came up with an idea of giving them something to call their own. She was doing a psychiatric rotation at the time.

“Everybody needs something to hold onto, and to feel warm and fuzzy,” Ms. Busick said. A mother of two, she said she could not imagine how scared and alone a displaced child must feel.

A 4-year-old psychiatric patient who was admitted to the hospital a year ago was Ms. Busick’s inspiration.

“My heart just went out to this child,” Ms. Busick said, when she learned about the girl’s situation, “even before I saw her.”

Ms. Busick started the Kelley Backpacks Program as a community service project. It provides foster children with backpacks filled with age- and gender-specific items selected for the child.

The project is managed by members of Kelley House, a small group of University of Massachusetts Medical School students.

Medical students, social workers, doctors, nurses, and case managers distribute Kelley House Backpacks. When one of them becomes aware that a patient is going to be taken into DCF custody, he or she pages one of the Kelley Backpacks medical student volunteers, who then puts together and delivers a backpack.

Dr. Phillip O. Fournier, clinical associate and professor of family medicine and community health, is the faculty adviser to the six-student board that oversees the program.

Alison Little and Anne Barnard are second-year medical students and leaders in the backpack program.

The Worcester Rotary Club made a cash donation last year to get the program off the ground with a grant, and the medical students held an old-school bake sale to raise additional money and awareness for the program.

“It is a team effort,” Ms. Barnard said.

“The main impetus for us is to send them with something to call their own. They’re going with nothing but the clothes they came with.”

Ms. Little said that once the beeper goes off, the student-volunteers try to customize a backpack as quickly as possible.

“We have a beeper we pass around. When the beeper goes off, we just try and get the backpacks up there as soon as possible,” she said.

Since summer, 13 children have received a Kelley backpack.

Of those, seven were younger than 2, Ms. Little said.

On the other end, foster parents are equally appreciative of the backpacks, according to Gina Doyle, a recruitment ambassador for the Department of Children and Families, and a foster mother as well.

“This program is so wonderful, so special,” Ms. Doyle said. “As a foster parent, these backpacks are so valuable to us. If you get a baby in an emergency situation, you actually have a bottle and a diaper. It makes it so nice for a foster parent. Whether it’s a call for a 12-month-old, or a 12-year-old, you never know what the calls will be.”

She pointed out that the situation is already so uncomfortable for them, and the backpack eases things a bit.

“They always talk about the trash bags they came with,” Ms. Doyle said.

She explained that the children who are removed only have minutes to throw a few possessions into a paper or plastic bag.

“There is such a need for this program.”

The Kelley Backpacks Program needs new or “good-as-new” backpacks, pajamas, underwear, socks, hats, gloves or mittens and baby wipes.

The program also need goods for both boys and girls from infant through 18 years old. Donations of stuffed animals, blankets, personal hygiene items, toys and games, books, notebooks, pens, pencils, crayons, markers, diapers and formula are also welcome.

For those wishing to make donations or send checks, contact kelleybackpacks@gmail.com for more information.